Vintage woodworking tools have always held a certain appeal to me. Earlier this year, I was out in California with David Marks working on an upcoming project. In David’s shop, he has a 24" jointer of vintage make, and if you’d watched his TV show “Wood Works” when it aired on HGTV, you may have caught a glimpse or two of it.
Seeing David’s jointer wasn’t my first introduction to vintage power equipment, but it certainly re-ignited a desire that I had to own some of these machines for myself. Fast forward several weeks, and I happened to stumble upon the beauty that you see above. An acquaintance of mine had posted this jointer for sale. The said gentleman has several large pieces of woodworking machinery already, and some of his coworkers/business partners persuaded him to let go of a few pieces that were “projects.” So, I called a buddy of mine to get his opinion. Fortunately (or unfortunately), my buddy Bobby is about as nuts as I am, so we jumped in the truck, hooked up a trailer, and drove the hour's drive to pick her up. I figured that, being woodworking nerds like me, you may enjoy reading about what goes into restoring a machine such as this.
J.T. Towsley
The jointer you see in Cincinnati, Ohio. Now, not surprisingly, there’s not much information on some vintage machinery such as this. Thankfully, there’s just a little bit floating around, thanks to various users at Keith Rucker’s website.
